Saturday, May 03, 2008

Home West Coast Game

A 7:05 game that starts after 9:30. Fun. I should've gone over to Fenway and got a really good seat. But we had a pizza coming...so I stayed home and ate it. Red Sox win, 7-3. I predicted 11-1. But I meant 7-3, so...

Sked ad update: They have fixed the home/road thing, so now Indy sits in a red square, and is sized to fit the square much better. So they "fixed" one part of this, but the key is, the ad is still there. Terrible job.

Tomorrow is the first day of Open Studios. Tonight I went to the space and set up my stuff. It was cool framing some of my Fenway pics. Some of them came out really nice. Others, I didn't account for the shot to get its edges cut off upon printing, and then for the new edges to get cut off by the matting within the frame. So, some shots didn't get used. Others, I winged it. Wang it? It should be fun. 50 Thurston St., Somerville, if you're in the area. 12-5 Saturday and Sunday. It's free to get in by the way, and there are 15 other artists in the space I'll be in. You can also take the little trolley all over town and see all the other artists' work.

I was really looking forward to this "Red Sox Memories" show. I missed the first one, but the second one--it seemed like a show I'd seen already. And it spoke to me like I knew nothing about the history of the team. But, hey, there are a lot of people in that category who need to learn.... Oh, and there was one scene where they're showing Fisk up in Game 6 of the '75 series. Or Carbo, really doesn't matter. The point is, they cut to a shot of Zimmer clapping encouragement from the third base coaches box. Only Zimmer was clearly IN Cincinnati, not Fenway Park. (If the background didn't give him away, the road uniform sure did.) Do they think we don't notice this stuff? The next episode is about rookies, hopefully it will be better. Speaking of editing, there's a shot in the Spaceman doc of Bill Lee walking off the mound in the '75 Series, and then they cut to a close-up, and suddenly it's clearly a regular season game. Funny thing is, in the commentary, Lee spots it and points it out to the co-commentator--the guy who made the movie.

Oh, and the new camera angle! NESN is suddenly going with the "pretty much directly behind the pitcher" view* on pitches. The stubborn side of me is saying, "Gimme that classic angle." But the (oppressed) sensible side is saying, Hey, you can really see pitches breaking, and you have a better view of balls and strikes. It takes getting used to for certain things. I'm still having trouble judging how far balls are going off the bat, and whether they'll be fair or foul on balls down the lines. I'm also wondering--since they still use the old shot occasionally, what is the cameraperson in the traditional camera-well doing the whole time? Is he just filming every pitch, knowing his shot goes unused forever? Also, you know who really gets the shaft on this angle? Drinkwater and Kapstein....

*This was tried by ESPN a few years ago--I think the Mussina broken-up-by-Crazy-Carl perfect game was shown from that angle. But when they did it, it felt like you were watching from the blimp. NESN's view is higher than the old angle, but not as high as ESPN's. So the pitcher's head isn't high enough on the screen to block the view of the pitch crossing the plate, yet he doesn't appear to be way below the plate, like on ESPN.